The perfectly centered chest pressure began around 6 pm on Tuesday evening, right after I left session. More than two days later, it hadn’t abated. This wasn’t an anxiety attack – at least not one that I’d ever experienced. Normally when I have a panic attack it feels like an anvil/anchor/cruise ship is pressing down on my chest, but it radiates, causes breathing difficulty and often tears. It also eventually passes. This pressure was constant, and when I felt a wave of nausea (a heart attack symptom along with chest pain/pressure) I decided it was time to head to the ER if only for peace of mind.
My dad drove me to North Shore Hospital while my mom stayed with Elaine and Sienna. Both my EKG and blood work came back normal, but they decided to keep me overnight for observation in something called the CDU (Clinical Decision Unit) so they could take a CAT scan of my heart using contrast dye in the morning. They kept telling me that having heart disease at 39 was abnormal, but not unheard of, so they wanted to be absolutely sure. What’s bizarre is that I never panicked throughout the entire experience (in fact, when I went for the CAT scan the following morning, the technician remarked about my calmness. Crazy, right?).
I spent the night alone as my dad had gone home not long before I was moved to the CDU. I texted with Elaine a bit before she went to sleep, but then it was just me and my thoughts. I lay in bed thinking about what I was missing at home: the security of being next to my amazing wife, the sleeping little girl who would turn 18 months while I was in the hospital. I wanted to hear Sienna shout, “Daddy!” with a huge smile on her face. I wanted to cuddle with Elaine. I longed to see something like this:
My blood pressure was consistently low (around 93 over 51) which was worrisome, though I normally have low blood pressure, but despite thinking about my funeral, expecting to hear I needed emergency bypass surgery or stents put in, I still didn’t freak out. I read a bit and eventually fell asleep.
The CAT scan was weird. When they injected the dye it felt like my body had filled with boiling oil, especially in the groin area, and my mouth tasted like pennies. I’d rather not have to go through that again. Later, back in the CDU, after a few hours of having to listen to the 30-year-old woman next to me who had a thick Long Island accent and gasped and exclaimed, “Oh…my…God!” over and and over as Maury Povich pronounced someone “The Father,” the doctor came in and said I was perfectly healthy. Strangely, I didn’t feel relief. I was just like, “Ok. Cool.” I can’t explain this reaction.
My mom picked me up and drove me home (many thanks to my parents for their help!). In the car she mentioned that she’d told her therapist about the events of the last few days and he said that it was possible my anxiety had entered a new phase, one in the which I showed growth. In his opinion, there was a chance that instead of manifesting in a full-on freak out, my anxiety simply sat there in my chest, and because I was growing emotionally, I didn’t panic. I need to discuss this with my own therapist, but it’s definitely possible since I HAD just left session when the pressure began and as already stated, I never became hysterical. All I know is that I missed Elaine and Sienna so much while in the hospital.
I hugged my wife and daughter when I got home, and then I started to unravel. Elaine said it was normal, that it was like air was suddenly and violently being released from a balloon. Irrational thoughts and exhaustion hit me like a tsunami, so Elaine put me to bed. I slept about four hours, awoke a bit disoriented, the pressure in my chest a little less, but I was ready to celebrate Sienna’s 18th birthday by going to the carnival that happened to be going on down the street.
Have I grown emotionally? Has my anxiety reached a new, improved level? I don’t know, but I have hope. All I know is that a night away reminded me how much I loved the people in my life and mere hours after I left the hospital (where despite remaining eerily calm, I feared learning I’d either suffered a heart attack or was about to), my little family – my gorgeous wife, my beautiful daughter, and I – walked down the street and enjoyed ourselves at the fair.
